


Surprises

by Maybethings



Series: May Be Promptin' [23]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Other, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-08
Updated: 2011-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 21:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Generated prompt. Shale/Sten, not what I thought. Written for Sten Week on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surprises

They surprise each other every day.

The first time Shale falls in battle, Sten is the first thing she sees when she regains consciousness. He doesn’t chide, doesn’t command, doesn’t ask if she’s all right. He just extends a hand and pulls her up. While his grip is strong, what surprises her is not the gentleness in those fingers. It is the _warmth_. It is something she does not remember—has not remembered. It is a wriggling remnant of sensation that once was, but is now emptiness.

A hurlock’s stray blade slips past Sten’s defenses and cuts his arm open. Leliana’s arrow and the Warden’s sword are fast, but Shale is faster. She puts her back between the hurlock and her comrade, and grips the wounded limb like a vise. Before he can even protest the runes on her body shift subtly, and healing energy floods him, skin and blood and bone. Her fingers are stone, yet smooth as skin. They drain the blood from his wound even as the flesh grows numb and cool. Wynne finishes what she has started, but she has done what was important—stopping the bleeding, keeping him alive. And until that job is done she pours herself into it, an unflinching bulwark until Wynne arrives and lays a hand on her shoulder.

How does a finger’s touch warm stone? How does life spring from rock and lyrium? They do not know. But in the earthy roar of one, and the light upon the other’s flesh, there is a contentment.

They cannot fathom one another. But it feels like no barrier at all.


End file.
